#TJ13 #F1 Courtroom Podcast: “A Wizard Appears”

This week’s show welcomes brand new panelist, all round Bon Vivant and beautiful person Vortex Motio, who is only the 2nd American to ever grace the hallowed walls of the podcasting shed. Occasional site contributor and stalwart Jury member, Vortex inhaled for the first time the heady mix of raw data, sweat and alcohol unique to the podcasting shed, finding it to be an intoxicating and bewitching brew.

Anil “Nutella” Parmar makes it five for five in panel appearances, although word that his beard is demanding a separate contract might influence his chances for keeping the streak alive.
Massive Mammal Faaattttt Hiiippppoooo! returns from an extended wallow to lend his linguistic skills and knowledge to the podcast. Displaying typical Teutonic determination, he once again insists literally on having the last word

Host in Chief Spanners Ready is joined yet again by the other American, Mattpt55 who manages to wax quite lyrical indeed in answer to the opening question, wasting his rhapsodic phrasing and powerful oratory on the hopelessly attention challenged crew.

This week’s panel takes a look back at some highlights from the Canadian GP, though they did have to admit that it was rather a lot of work to find anything. Mercedes’ continued misadventures in the communications department come under the microscope as do Max Verstappen’s press conference adventures. The fortunes of Kimi Raikkonen are also considered (rather dismal I’m afraid) and Jury member (and site contributor) TourDog steps up with the kind of fascinating data that makes Spanners head for an extended visit to the loo. The looming sports car shoot out at Circuit de la Sarthe occupy the creative side of our panels brains while Anil yet again delivers with a wrap up of the previous week’s Formula E race. Turns out Formula E is still a thing, and the panel reminisce about boarding the Trulli train just one more time.

Chaos reigns for a third straight week in the quiz, as Spanners is rapidly proving to be the Jean Todt of the game show world. Find out if the only panel member to win was indeed Anil “the Streak”, or whether another member, Vettel-like, was there to pick up the pieces when it all fell apart on the strategy end.

This week’s Things discovers that there was a reason Grosjean hit Will Stevens, and it might even be medical in nature.

Thanks again to the Jury for providing an excellent stream of comments. Unfortunately, we were too distracted by Tamara Laurel’s new video Whisky to notice.

Go say hi from us in the comments. We’ll do better next time, Jury, we promise. Honest. And join @SpannersReady, @Mattpt55, @FormulaEDiary, @VortexMotio and @TheFatHippo13 on Twitter where we sometimes talk about stuff. With Words.

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iTunes 5 star reviews: We would also like to take this opportunity to ask you all for your support. As the TJ13 community grows the Podcast is becoming a huge part of the journey. From recent chats within the F1 paddock in Jerez we have found it is establishing a following within the world of F1 and we would like to continue to grow and make TJ13 the number one site for F1 information across the globe.

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14 responses to “#TJ13 #F1 Courtroom Podcast: “A Wizard Appears””

Nice 24hrs of Le Mans preview. As for F1 vs. WEC; I will always love F1, but the sport as a whole is in a massive lull at the moment and the WEC is winning me over. I have found myself relying on MotoGP and WEC more than I used to for entertainment, actual racing and the ingenuity and variation of machine solutions.

Just on another note, below is a link to a tweet I sent with a clip of a Lewis Hamilton fanboi. I can’t say anymore that would do the clip justice… There are issue present there. #Scary

Maybe it’s because wec made changes, in the right direction. I love the way they give certain freedom within the Rules. It shows the different approach there is possible to get the same result. And that gave the whole series a new start. They managed to interest new, big car companies to commit themselfs with the sport. They even have 2 companies that are more or less the same brand. And they battle each other. And if the rumours are true and ford announces today that they will be coming back to lmp1 wec will manage what f1 can’t. And last but not least, le mans gets quicker… F1 pôle canada last year: 1:14.874 this year 1:14.393 le mans pole last year: 3:21.789 and this year 3m16.887s that’s 5 seconds!

The ACO are slowing down the WEC cars next year and that pole time is unlikely to be beaten for some time. Also don’t forget that the aero rules in WEC are more restrictive and the engine rules seem free but there is actually a fairly complicated BoP mechanism build in. Depending on type of fuel and in which MJ class you run the maximum fuel flow is adjusted. WEC has made rule changes that created a very entertaining series and I’m convinced that the reason for that is that when the ACO thought up these rules they had a vision on how they want their races to unfold and how that can be achieved with a mix of different engines, hybrid and non hybrid.
The last time F1 thought about what they want F1 to be was the rule shake up for 2009 but unfortunately the concept they came up with was discarded and a compromise made. So the last time F1 looked at the rules and state of technology and actually acted upon was in the mid 90’s during Mosley’s first safety revolution and ever since then there were only amendments made to that concept creating the monstrosity of rules we have now. It’s time F1 looks at themselves and asks what they want F1 to be and what set of rules accomplishes that goal best. After 20 years of pasting plasters on the cracks in the rules is just too much and F1 should start with a clean sheet. Costs will probably prevent F1 from doing that and I’m afraid that it’s going to take a CVC buyout, and then several years of paying back expensive loans that CVC have made with F1 as collateral, before such a thing will be even possible.

The rules maybe complicated but the get the job done. And that’s all that counts. wec has gotten better, I know I’ve been to the six hours of spa and it seemed long hours, but this year it was a 5,5 hhour sprint race. Never seen that before. One of the most exciting races ever. And the last couple of years Le mans itself has become more exciting every year and if they manage to pull it off again this year ( and all the signs are there) only a blind man would fail to recognise that this is the way to go for f1.

WEC has gotten better and the rules are to thank for that. Having said that I don’t think F1 could use the same rules. The WEC concept works because WEC cars have to refuel and, except for the last pit stop, when they refuel the tank is fueled to the brim. All LMP1 cars have the same fuel tank size (68.3Kg for Petrol engines and 54.2 for Diesel engines) so strategy is determined by tire life and the number of laps on a full tank. F1 does not have the same things influence strategy as in WEC and therefore the rules cannot be the same. In a way the rules are already similar… both have a maximum fuel tank size, both have the same fuel flow meter to check if the cars do not use more fuel than allowed and both have restrictions on aero. The main difference are the MJ classes and the freedom to use any engine configuration and I would argue the reason WEC can use the different engine configurations is because of the fuel flow restrictions combined with the endurance format (refueling). Since in F1 there is no refueling and even if there were the amount of fuel put in becomes part of strategy decisions while in WEC that doesn’t influence the strategy. F1 has to find a different way to make F1 races exciting by either preventing certain aspects of a race to become dominant or encourage development in a direction that has a positive influence on racing but simply copying WEC would result in failure because of the differences in racing formats. I would love to see F1 sit down and take a proper look at what they want with F1 and only after that bring in the engineers to device a way to achieve that (but no writing the rules for the engineers ;-))

The main issue I guess – from a sporting perspective – is that the F1 of the last couple years doesn’t really count as F1…

The driver and team that won the championship in, let’s say ’14 and whoever wins in ’15, doesn’t really count ultimately as bonafide sporting F1 achievements. It’s been a non-event really, glorified GP2 maybe; not racing. There’s been no real driving at the limit, no battles – just slow cars, button pushing, mini-WEC car resource management and suspected team manipulation.

So with that said, it’s beyond doubt and an absolute indisputable fact that there has been no genuine F1 champion in ’14 and ’15, and any Grand Prix wins don’t stack up to the past. As I see it, and I think as the record books will show, F1 starts in 1950, ends in 2013 and could restart in 2016 in a sporting sense with new regulations to test the drivers and teams, not Mercedes budget and their drivers button pushing / politicking abilities.

We all can agree, Sebastian Vettel is the defending champion.

So, I’m not sure who has won in the, let’s call them the fake-F1 years, but I know I wouldn’t want to be that person. The trophies are nothing more than door stops, not akin to what Senna, Schumacher and Fangio earned.

Oouch, a lot of tea went wrong way there, hehe.
But complete rubbish.
A new engine formula which Merc did the best job with does not mean end of the world as we know it.
Team manipulation and resource management has always been part of F1 but with the modern computer tech they can micro manage to 11th degree of hell.
Or do you mean that Schumis wins at Ferrari was down to only fair play?

Alonso was right, let them race, shut up the pitwall, send 2/3 of the geeks home and if the machinery is so damned complicated that the driver can’t handle it, simplify or blow it up, that should make it more interesting at end of the races, after all, even hollywood types manage to drive a prius…
Imagine Rosberg making corners to straights, Lewis BBQ engines, Kimi doing doughnuts, Seb learning new Italian swear words for electronics and Pastor winning the first Hugo Chavez memorial socialist award for sporting achievements, now that’s what I call entertainment.:-)